It's a long road...

... to Salento!

One of my students from the administrative assistants class, Edgar, is the director of a Scouts group, which is like boy scouts but co-ed. He invited me to join the group yesterday in a hike to a nursing home in a nearby town, 7km (about 4 miles) away. There is a group of kids ages 7-11 who have their own troop, and then the older kids have scout troops, and they were bringing toiletries and snacks for the elderly. We began walking through the city, eventually reaching a small highway (with sidewalks!). It started raining, so we waited for a bit under the protection of a bus stop. I still got wet though; I didn't bring a coat because it was sunny when we left! "A scout is always prepared," Edgar told me - I was evidently not a scout. Whoops. By the time we climbed a hill and were walking down a dirt road past pretty nice vacation homes, the sun had come out again. At the end of the dirt road was the nursing home. I had expected it to be something like we have in the U.S., with individual or double rooms, air conditioning, machines and medicines, and the like, so I was shocked to see a two-floored, open-air building that had three large rooms upstairs filled with beds. I was confused and at first misguidedly impressed by the simplicity, but through a conversation later on with my host mom I learned that lack of adequate facilities for nursing homes is a big problem here in Colombia. Many families can neither afford to take care of their elderly nor afford to put them into one of the expensive nursing homes, which would have all the necessary amenities to care for them well. This information concerns me... I wonder what I will do about it.

The elderly, however, were in great spirits! They were such cute little old Colombians! The so graciously accepted the items from the kids, and smiled and thanked us. While we were there, some of the kids started coming up to me and introducing themselves (I had talked to Edgar and some of the parents who came with us most of the way up). It was so fun to meet them! On the way down, I walked with the kids as they asked me, "How do you say ___________ in Spanish?" "And ____________?" They were just so cute! And one little seven-year-old boy already knew a lot of vocab, which he taught himself using an online program! Wow! I also tried to teach them the Mondo camp song, but that proved to be a little too complicated, so I think next time we will try something simpler :) I say next time because I plan to meet with them each week, and make it part of my social project for Fulbright! I am very excited, because it is along the line of what I hoped to do for my project. A big thank-you to Edgar for inviting me on the walk!!

SO from being wet and cold, I got sick and have been down for 4 days. Have been recuperating now. I survived my first Colombian sickness! Anyone want shirts if I make them? :D

Also, approximately once every two days someone I have just met asks me if I can teach them English. Of course, at this rate, it would be impossible to teach everyone, and even anyone, given my prior commitments. I always feel bad say no because they are just so nice about it! I was pretty amazed at how frequently it happened, so I asked my host parents about it. They laughed and said it's a typical Colombian thing to want to learn English. It is, of course, okay to say no. I might encourage them to study abroad to learn the language, which is a great thing to do!

In other news,  I was finally able to take money out of the ATM after making many attempts to activate my card and being rejecting multiples times by some ATM's. Whew! It may look like a lot, because it is, but I used a lot of it to pay rent and the bills equal about $6.00 and $11.00, respectively :)

So I went to the supermarket across from my apartment building and was overjoyed to find Trix cereal that still comes in SHAPES instead of the boring different-colored balls that they now have in the U.S.! A great day in Colombia. They also call tissues "Kleenex" like many of us U.S. peeps. I was also asked if my eyes are actually blue. Blue eyes, every green or grey, are an extreme rarity here! I got enjoyment out of that question :)

Me and the Trix (in Spanish, of course!) and my are they real? blue eyes

AND a girl moved in with us who is from Mexico! She will be with us for 6 months - awesome! She is great!

That's all for now. Gracias for being here with me! Have a magical day :)

ancianato = nursing home

caminata = hike

fiebre = fever

dinero = money

cajero = ATM

ojos = eyes